Glenda Jackson on how the Oscars don’t matter – EW.com Pinterest JILLIAN EDELSTEIN for EW Today’s younger audiences might not recognize this petite woman in the gray wool coat and the Tintin sweatshirt. Well, they should. Glenda Jackson, 79, is a two-time Best Actress Oscar winner and one of the toughest, most riveting performers ever to become a major movie star. But she hasn’t appeared in a film since 1990 — and that’s because she decided to step away from Hollywood 25 years ago and run for a seat in British Parliament. In 1992, she was elected as a member of the liberal Labour Party, going on to serve her London constituency until her retirement last year. And now, out of work for the first time since she was 16, Jackson is feeling lively and in the mood for a chat. For EW’s special Oscar issue (on stands now), she sat down for a profile on her life in movies and her life in politics. This year’s Academy Awards marks the 45th anniversary of her first Oscar win, in 1971, for Ken Russell’s florid erotic drama Women in Love.

Her second Oscar came three years later for the romantic comedy A Touch of Class, costarring George Segal. (She was also nominated for her lead roles in John Schlesinger’s stunning bisexual love story, Sunday Bloody Sunday, and the Henrik Ibsen adaptation, Hedda.) Over coffee in the kitchen of townhouse near Abbey Road in London, Jackson accepts that people are still fascinated by those two shimmering statuettes. But she doesn’t mince words when asked about what they really mean to her. “My mother polished them assiduously,” she says, “and it doesn’t take long for the gold to come off. Nothing but base metal underneath.” Jackson, obviously, is a woman who says what she thinks.

It’s a quality that distinguished her great performances: including her breakthrough as an asylum inmate in 1967’s Marat/Sade; 1971’s sensational The Music Lovers, featuring one of cinema’s craziest sex scenes, set in a shuddering train car; the landmark 1972 miniseries Elizabeth R, in which she astonished for nearly 10 hours as the Virgin Queen; a pair of cozy, enjoyable comedies made opposite Walter Matthau, House Calls (1978) and Hopscotch (1980); two outré films for director Robert Altman, HeathH (1980) and Beyond Therapy (1987); and a bittersweet 1978 biopic, ripe for rediscovery, of melancholy poet Stevie Smith, called Stevie. On this day, Jackson is speaking her mind on any number of topics. After decades in Parliament, she still loves the scrimmage of debate. The Oscars, of course, come up.

In the conversation that follows, she offers an opinionated, unfiltered reality check on the whole awards brouhaha, as well as her take on the limited power of movies to transform culture and why she thinks the best movies nowadays are on television. (To read about Jackson’s life as a politician, plus her thoughts on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, click here .) ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What goes through your head when you think about the two Oscars you won? GLENDA JACKSON: Well, I jib at the idea that I won them. I did nothing apart from what the job I was given. If there was a winner, it was the people who voted for me. My sardonic view is that they’re not as important as everyone thinks they are. I never went into a film thinking, “Oh gosh, if I do this slightly differently I might win something.” What was the moviemaking experience like for you, especially in the beginning of your career? I loved it. The camera is so obsessed with what you’re doing.

It’s an amazing experience to be in the area around the light, surrounded by people in the dark, and they’re all looking and thinking, “Her hair, her mascara, her costume… Is the lighting right?” They’re not looking at you. But that concentrated energy into the area of light is a palpable force. But it’s not a vainglorious energy, like for some ultimate reward? No, it’s an energy you can use. But the idea you would do things differently because there was a prize at the end of it, like a gold medal or something, that I’ve jibbed at. They weren’t earned in that sense. Though the films you were in, like Women in Love and Sunday Bloody Sunday, were small, intimate dramas. They needed and deserved the spotlight that they received from the Oscars. I don’t disagree but that was in the early ’70s. The Oscars have been transformed into what they are now. They have much less to do with cinema. They are about frocks and the whole shebang of nonsense. Nowadays, it seems like the real competition is between the different award shows.

The Golden Globes, back in my day, if you won you were lucky to get a notice in the next day’s Los Angeles Times. Now the coverage is ludicrous. You didn’t go to the Oscars any of the four times you were nominated. I was always working, but I happened to be in Los Angeles on the Sunday when they were happening one year and I was asked to open the envelope. And I was just so impressed. Two things. One was the efficiency with which they pulled it off. On both sides of the stage there was this colored tape for taking people to television and media. It was so well organized. And the other thing I found quite fascinating was the sense of excitement before the envelope was opened. It was really potent and intense. And you know what? The minute the envelope was opened, nobody gave a toss. “Right, fine, who’s next?” What about the lasting cultural value? In the case of something like 12 Years a Slave, which won an Oscar for Best Picture a couple years ago. Wouldn’t you say that the award shined a light on social issues? Prove it. See, you can’t. Who won last year? Who won the year before?

Does it make one scrap of difference? At the time, it does, yes. But that’s not how human beings are. We enjoy the glitz of the moment, which is what it is. But how can you say that 12 Years a Slave or Selma has caused a fundamental cultural shift? And then you have these black guys being shot by policemen. Would that the Oscars could change the world but, I’m sorry, it just ain’t true. Ignoring the Oscars, do you think movies have the power to cause cultural shifts? Well, perhaps a couple of them have over the years. It would be nice to think, because film is such a powerful medium. But it is not transformative in a way that we’d all like it to be. Little by little, baby steps, it has been transformative over the years. These shifts are tiny, incremental, hopeful – but they can be wiped away so easily. Do you see lots of movies these days? Not as many. But I’ve always been obsessive about books. I’m of an age now where I tend to reread quite a lot. And quite interestingly I find that I read biographies. I never used to read them before, it used to just be fictional novels.

I’m a big fan of detective fiction. David McCullough did a terrific book about Truman and I’m reading that again. He also did John Adams. And my interest in John Adams came entirely because of the television series, which was just marvelous, I thought. Yes, that was on HBO. You basically helped invent longform TV with Elizabeth R in the early 70s. That’s an exaggeration. But there was an audience, yes, especially since it had to do with dead long gone Royals. But it has changed. Both films and television are being made for Netflix and that’s the venue now, it’s not even cinemas anymore. Obviously Star Wars sold well, but certainly companies like HBO and Netflix can be much more adventurous about what they show. And the standards of many of those programs are very high, the writing especially. What do you like on TV? American television has been extraordinary. You name it. House of Cards, Breaking Bad, you name it. The Wire, of course. The Wire is absolutely extraordinary. The West Wing, for someone who’s interested in politics. I think it destroyed politicians because Aaron Sorkin presented politics the way we all want it to be, though it never is. That’s great drama.

Show Full Article Glenda Jackson Is Back: Two-Time Oscar Winner Daunted and Excited to Return to Acting Glenda Jackson Is Back: Two-Time Oscar Winner Daunted and Excited to Return to Acting Tweet Share Of the 13 women who have won more than one best actress Oscar, almost all are household names — think Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep — but one, who won it twice and was nominated two other times in a span of just six years, is completely unknown to most people today. That’s because Glenda Jackson walked away from the acting profession in 1992, at the height of her powers, to run for a seat in the British House of Commons, won and spent the last 23 years tirelessly serving her constituents. During her time in Parliament, she never returned to acting and turned down interview requests about her prior career in order to fully focus on her second one. But this past May, Jackson did not seek re-election and quietly returned to civilian life.

Now, just months away from her 80th birthday, she is returning to acting — dipping her toe back into the water by voicing a centenarian and narrating a serialization of Emile Zola stories for BBC Radio 4, now airing in England. And she finally is ready to reflect on her unprecedented trajectory. Speaking by phone from her home in Hampstead and Kilburn, the northwest London constituency she served, Jackson says, “I’m not big on looking back,” and insists she never “missed” acting: “Acting only exists only when you’re doing it, so if you’re not doing it, there’s nothing to miss.” Her career began during the Swinging Sixties, when, while working as a shopgirl, she joined a friend at a meeting of an amateur acting group and enjoyed it and was encouraged to pursue it further — an idea to which she was receptive because, she recalls, “I felt there was more to life than I was experiencing, and there was more that I had to offer.” Jackson won a scholarship to RADA, graduated and then began working for Peter Brook in his groundbreaking Theatre of Cruelty, which was absorbed into the Royal Shakespeare Co.

It was in Brook's Marat/Sade that her work first won widespread attention. “It never, ever occurred to me that I would be in front of a camera,” says Jackson. “So it was very surprising when I was offered the chance and discovered that I liked it.” She appeared in several films, including an adaptation of Marat/Sade, before the one that really put her on the map: 1969’s Women in Love, a period piece about sexual politics directed by Ken Russell, “an extraordinary director for whom it was a privilege to work” (and with whom she would collaborate on three other films, including 1970's The Music Lovers). For her performance, she won the best actress Oscar. With her pouty mouth, slanted eyes and pageboy haircut, Jackson reminded some of a dominatrix — and like one, she not infrequently appeared in the buff (“All you feel is cold most of the time” she says of her on-screen nudity) and suffered no fools (“warm” and “fuzzy” are adjectives that have never been used to describe her). But she didn't become an actress to make friends or fortune; for her, it was all about the work.

Jackson won two Emmys for her portrayal of Elizabeth I, from her teens to old age, in one of TV’s first miniseries, Elizabeth R (1971), just months before playing the same queen, opposite Vanessa Redgrave, in the film Mary, Queen of Scots. Then came 1971’s Sunday Bloody Sunday (another Oscar nom); 1973 comedy A Touch of Class (another Oscar), which, to her relief, got her away from playing “neurotic sex-starved women”; and 1975’s Hedda (another Oscar nom). It’s not coincidental that Jackson — who from 1958 to 1976 was married to fellow actor Roy Hodges, with whom she had a son, journalist Daniel Hodges — played a string of fiercely independent and accomplished women, including the actress Sarah Bernhardt in The Incredible Sarah (1976) and poet Steve Smith in Stevie (1978). She was appalled at the lack of opportunity for women in film and society overall, and passed on bigger paychecks to take on parts of substance. Jackson is dismayed at how little has changed in the ensuing years.

“It’s exactly the same now, and it’s deeply, deeply depressing,” she sighs. But she’s gratified by the rare exceptions to the rule, such as the new film Suffragette, which she hasn’t yet seen but which she observed being filmed at the House of Commons. (One wonders if that pic’s actresses realized that one of the best of their lot was in their midst.) Read More Ironically, it was a female Jackson reviled who motivated her to leave acting for politics: namely, Margaret Thatcher. “I could not stand what was happening in my country,” she says, recalling “the destruction of what I had regarded as the social basis of my country.” Jackson continues, “Anything I could have done that was legal that would have removed Thatcherism from governing my country I was prepared to do.” A member of the liberal Labour Party, she was recruited to take on a conservative incumbent, won and assumed the “extraordinary privilege” of representing tens of thousands of people on issues big (she says the Iraq War, which she railed against, was “the worst thing during my time there”) and small (like bus emissions).

Jackson's new job was, in some respects, not entirely unlike her old one, with “big kind of set pieces like Prime Minister’s Questions” — but, she hastens to add, “The House of Commons is remarkably under-rehearsed, the writing is awful and the acoustics are even worse!” When she left Parliament, Jackson would have been entitled to some rest and relaxation. (“I never saw a play during the whole of those 23 years because we were always in the House of Commons and you can’t go to the theater late,” she notes. And she only kept up with movies that aired on television — recent favorites include The Motorcycle Diaries and The Lives of Others.) But instead she went right back to work, having been offered the Radio 4 project, which she found “daunting and exciting at the same time.” When Jackson stepped into the recording booth two months ago — her first day as an actor in 23 years — there were butterflies. “If there hadn’t been,” she says, “I would’ve been seriously worried!” But she quickly acclimated and assumed the same sky-high standards she had in the old days.

Asked if she would return to the big screen if, say, Steven Spielberg approached her with an offer, she replied without hesitation, “Well, I’d need to see the script first!” Accolades and honors mean little to her — Jackson skipped the Oscars all four times she was nominated, sometimes because of work conflicts, other times because she didn’t want to go. And she cares little about her two statuettes: “One of my nephews asked if he could borrow one a few years ago because they were doing a project at school — I don’t think he’s ever given it back — and the other one is up in the attic,” she says matter-of-factly. “I just did the job I was asked to do.” As for revisiting her past work, that was out of the question — until the last few weeks, when she decided to accept invitations from the British Film Institute to attend screenings of Women in Love and Sunday Bloody Sunday, which she hadn’t seen since their release decades ago.

Ever the tough cookie, Jackson says, “My reaction was exactly the same: I look at myself and I say, &lsquoWhy did you choose to do that?!’” Reblog Glenda Jackson Is Back: Two-Time Oscar Winner Daunted and Excited to Return to Acting | Hollywood Reporter 5:36pm PT by Scott Feinberg Glenda Jackson Is Back: Two-Time Oscar Winner Daunted and Excited to Return to Acting Photofest; John Phillips/Getty Images for The Eve Appeal Glenda Jackson, then and now Nearing her 80th birthday, the legendary thesp dishes on her acting career and Oscars, her 23 years in the British House of Commons and her return to showbiz in a BBC Radio 4 serialization of Emile Zola stories now airing in England. Of the 13 women who have won more than one best actress Oscar, almost all are household names — think Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Ingrid Bergman, Jane Fonda and Meryl Streep — but one, who won it twice and was nominated two other times in a span of just six years, is completely unknown to most people today.

That’s because Glenda Jackson walked away from the acting profession in 1992, at the height of her powers, to run for a seat in the British House of Commons, won and spent the last 23 years tirelessly serving her constituents. During her time in Parliament, she never returned to acting and turned down interview requests about her prior career in order to fully focus on her second one. But this past May, Jackson did not seek re-election and quietly returned to civilian life. Now, just months away from her 80th birthday, she is returning to acting — dipping her toe back into the water by voicing a centenarian and narrating a serialization of Emile Zola stories for BBC Radio 4, now airing in England. And she finally is ready to reflect on her unprecedented trajectory.

Speaking by phone from her home in Hampstead and Kilburn, the northwest London constituency she served, Jackson says, “I’m not big on looking back,” and insists she never “missed” acting: “Acting only exists only when you’re doing it, so if you’re not doing it, there’s nothing to miss.” Her career began during the Swinging Sixties, when, while working as a shopgirl, she joined a friend at a meeting of an amateur acting group and enjoyed it and was encouraged to pursue it further — an idea to which she was receptive because, she recalls, “I felt there was more to life than I was experiencing, and there was more that I had to offer.” Jackson won a scholarship to RADA, graduated and then began working for Peter Brook in his groundbreaking Theatre of Cruelty, which was absorbed into the Royal Shakespeare Co. It was in Brook's Marat/Sade that her work first won widespread attention. “It never, ever occurred to me that I would be in front of a camera,” says Jackson.

“So it was very surprising when I was offered the chance and discovered that I liked it.” She appeared in several films, including an adaptation of Marat/Sade, before the one that really put her on the map: 1969’s Women in Love, a period piece about sexual politics directed by Ken Russell, “an extraordinary director for whom it was a privilege to work” (and with whom she would collaborate on three other films, including 1970's The Music Lovers). For her performance, she won the best actress Oscar. With her pouty mouth, slanted eyes and pageboy haircut, Jackson reminded some of a dominatrix — and like one, she not infrequently appeared in the buff (“All you feel is cold most of the time” she says of her on-screen nudity) and suffered no fools (“warm” and “fuzzy” are adjectives that have never been used to describe her). But she didn't become an actress to make friends or fortune; for her, it was all about the work.

Jackson won two Emmys for her portrayal of Elizabeth I, from her teens to old age, in one of TV’s first miniseries, Elizabeth R (1971), just months before playing the same queen, opposite Vanessa Redgrave, in the film Mary, Queen of Scots. Then came 1971’s Sunday Bloody Sunday (another Oscar nom); 1973 comedy A Touch of Class (another Oscar), which, to her relief, got her away from playing “neurotic sex-starved women”; and 1975’s Hedda (another Oscar nom). It’s not coincidental that Jackson — who from 1958 to 1976 was married to fellow actor Roy Hodges, with whom she had a son, journalist Daniel Hodges — played a string of fiercely independent and accomplished women, including the actress Sarah Bernhardt in The Incredible Sarah (1976) and poet Steve Smith in Stevie (1978). She was appalled at the lack of opportunity for women in film and society overall, and passed on bigger paychecks to take on parts of substance. Jackson is dismayed at how little has changed in the ensuing years.

“It’s exactly the same now, and it’s deeply, deeply depressing,” she sighs. But she’s gratified by the rare exceptions to the rule, such as the new film Suffragette, which she hasn’t yet seen but which she observed being filmed at the House of Commons. (One wonders if that pic’s actresses realized that one of the best of their lot was in their midst.) Ironically, it was a female Jackson reviled who motivated her to leave acting for politics: namely, Margaret Thatcher. “I could not stand what was happening in my country,” she says, recalling “the destruction of what I had regarded as the social basis of my country.” Jackson continues, “Anything I could have done that was legal that would have removed Thatcherism from governing my country I was prepared to do.” A member of the liberal Labour Party, she was recruited to take on a conservative incumbent, won and assumed the “extraordinary privilege” of representing tens of thousands of people on issues big (she says the Iraq War, which she railed against, was “the worst thing during my time there”) and small (like bus emissions).

Jackson's new job was, in some respects, not entirely unlike her old one, with “big kind of set pieces like Prime Minister’s Questions” — but, she hastens to add, “The House of Commons is remarkably under-rehearsed, the writing is awful and the acoustics are even worse!” When she left Parliament, Jackson would have been entitled to some rest and relaxation. (“I never saw a play during the whole of those 23 years because we were always in the House of Commons and you can’t go to the theater late,” she notes. And she only kept up with movies that aired on television — recent favorites include The Motorcycle Diaries and The Lives of Others.) But instead she went right back to work, having been offered the Radio 4 project, which she found “daunting and exciting at the same time.” When Jackson stepped into the recording booth two months ago — her first day as an actor in 23 years — there were butterflies. “If there hadn’t been,” she says, “I would’ve been seriously worried!” But she quickly acclimated and assumed the same sky-high standards she had in the old days.

Asked if she would return to the big screen if, say, Steven Spielberg approached her with an offer, she replied without hesitation, “Well, I’d need to see the script first!” Accolades and honors mean little to her — Jackson skipped the Oscars all four times she was nominated, sometimes because of work conflicts, other times because she didn’t want to go. And she cares little about her two statuettes: “One of my nephews asked if he could borrow one a few years ago because they were doing a project at school — I don’t think he’s ever given it back — and the other one is up in the attic,” she says matter-of-factly. “I just did the job I was asked to do.” As for revisiting her past work, that was out of the question — until the last few weeks, when she decided to accept invitations from the British Film Institute to attend screenings of Women in Love and Sunday Bloody Sunday, which she hadn’t seen since their release decades ago.

Ever the tough cookie, Jackson says, “My reaction was exactly the same: I look at myself and I say, ‘Why did you choose to do that?!’” Scott Feinberg Glenda Jackson - Biography - IMDb Glenda Jackson Biography Showing all 67 items Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (2) | Trivia (26) | Personal Quotes (31) | Salary (3) Overview (3) 5' 6½" (1.69 m) Mini Bio (1) Few in modern British history have come as far or achieved as much from humble beginnings as Glenda Jackson has. From acclaimed actress to respected MP (Member of Parliament), she is known for her high intelligence and meticulous approach to her work. She was born to a working-class household in Birkenhead, where her father was a bricklayer and her mother was a cleaning lady. When she was very young, her father was recruited into the Navy, where he worked aboard a minesweeper. She graduated from school at 16 and worked for a while in a pharmacy. However, she found this boring and dead-end and wanted better for herself.

Her life changed forever when she was accepted into the prestigious Royal Acadamy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of 18. Her work impressed all who observed it. In addition, she married Roy Hodges at 22. Her first work came on the stage, where she won a role in an adaptation of "Separate Tables", and made a positive impression on critics and audiences alike. This led to film roles, modest at first, but she approached them with great determination. She first came to the public's notice when she won a supporting role in the controversial film Marat/Sade (1967), and is acknowledged to have stolen the show. She quickly became a member of Britian's A-List. Her first starring role came in the offbeat drama Negatives (1968), in which she out-shone the oddball material. The following year, controversial director Ken Russell gave her a starring role in his adaptation of the 1920s romance Women in Love (1969), in which she co-starred with Oliver Reed . The beautifully photographed film was a major success, and Jackson's performance won her an Academy Award for Best Actress.

In the process, she became an international celebrity, known world-wide, yet she didn't place as much value on the status and fame as most do. She did, however, become a major admirer of Russell (who had great admiration for her in return) and acted in more of his films. She starred in the controversial The Music Lovers (1970), even though it required her to do a nude scene, something that made her very uncomfortable. The film was not a success, but she agreed to do a cameo appearance in his next film, The Boy Friend (1971). Although her role as an obnoxious actress was very small, she once again performed with great aplomb. 1971 turned out to be a key year for her. She took a risk by appearing in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), as a divorced businesswoman in a dead-end affair with a shallow bisexual artist, but the film turned out to be another major success.

Also, she accepted the starring role in the British Broadcasting Corporation's much anticipated biography of Queen Elizabeth I, and her performance in the finished film, Elizabeth R (1971), was praised not only by critics and fans, but is cited by historians as the most accurate portrayal of the beloved former queen ever seen. The same year, she successfully played the role of Queen Elizabeth I again in the historical drama Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). That same year, she appeared in the popular comedy series The Morecambe & Wise Show (1968) in a skit as Queen Cleopatra, which is considered on of the funniest TV skits in British television, and also proof that she could do comedy just as well as costume melodrama. One who saw and raved about her performance was director Melvin Frank , who proceeded to cast her in the romantic comedy A Touch of Class (1973), co-starring George Segal . The two stars had a chemistry which brought out the best in each other, and the film was not only a major hit in both the United States and Great Britian, but won her a second Academy Award.

She continued to impress by refusing obvious commercial roles and seeking out serious artistic work. She gave strong performances in The Romantic Englishwoman (1975) and The Incredible Sarah (1976), in which she portrayed the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt . However, some of her films didn't register with the public, like The Triple Echo (1972), The Maids (1975), and Nasty Habits (1977). In addition, her marriage fell apart in 1976. But her career remained at the top and in 1978 she was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire. That year, she made a comeback in the comedy House Calls (1978), co-starring Walter Matthau . The success of this film which led to a popular television spin-off in the United States the following year. In 1979, she and Segal re-teamed in Lost and Found (1979), but they were unable to overcome the routine script. She again co-starred with Oliver Reed in The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978), but the film was another disappointment.

During the 1980s, she appeared in Hopscotch (1980) also co-starring Walter Matthau , and HealtH (1980) with Lauren Bacall , with disappointing results, although Jackson herself was never blamed. Her performance in the TV biography Sakharov (1984), in which she played Yelena Bonner , devoted wife of imprisoned Russian nuclear scientist Andrei Sakharov opposite Jason Robards , won rave reviews. However, the next film Turtle Diary (1985), was only a modest success, and the ensemble comedy Beyond Therapy (1987) was a critical and box office disaster and Jackson herself got some of the worst reviews of her career. As the 1980s ended, Jackson continued to act, but became more focused on public affairs. She grew up in a household that was staunchly supportive of the Labour Party. She had disliked the policies of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher , even though she admired some of her personal attributes, and strongly disapproved of Thatcher's successor, John Major . She was unhappy with the direction of British government policies, and in 1992 ran for Parliament.

Although running in an area (Hampstead and Highgate) which was not heavily supportive of her party, she won by a slim margin and immediately became its most famous newly elective member. However, those who expected that she would rest on her laurels and fame were mistaken. She immediately took an interest in transportation issues, and in 1997 was appointed Junior Transportation Minister by Prime Minister Tony Blair . However, she was critical of some of Blair's policies and is considered an intra-party opponent of Blair's moderate faction. She is considered a traditional Labour Party activist, but is not affiliated with the faction known as The Looney Left. In 2000, she ran for Mayor of London, but lost the Labour nomination to fellow MP Frank Dobson , an ally of Blair's, who then lost the election to an independent candidate, Ken Livingstone . In 2005, she ran again and won the nomination, but lost to Livingstone, winning 38% of the vote. When Blair announced he would not seek reelection as Prime Minister in 2006, Jackson's name was mentioned as a possible successor, although she didn't encourage this speculation.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: annynomous Spouse (1) (1958 - 26 January 1976) (divorced) (1 child) Trade Mark (2) Good diction and strong speaking voice. Trivia (26) Only British Member of Parliament to win an Oscar. She had her appendix removed in October of 1999. She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1978 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama. She was hospitalized after breaking her wrist and hip in a fall on the way to give a speech on March 22, 2002. She was able to give most of her speech before the pain forced her to go to the hospital. Named after actress Glenda Farrell . In The Rainbow (1989) she plays the mother of the character she had played twenty years earlier in Women in Love (1969) . Retired from acting in 1992 to run for Parliament in the Labour Party. Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State responsible for London Transport from 1997 to 1999.

Has a theatre named after her. She was awarded the 1984 London Critics Circle Theatre Award (Drama Theatre Award) for Best Actress for her best performance in Strange Interlude. An Associate Member of RADA. Has been nominated for Broadway's Tony Award four times: as Best Supporting or Featured Actress (Dramatic), in 1966 for portraying Charlotte Corday in Peter Weiss ' "Marat/Sade," a performance recreated in the film version of the same title, Marat/Sade (1967); and, as Best Actress (Play): in 1981 for "Rose;" in 1985 for playing Nina Leeds in a revival of Eugene O'Neill 's "Strange Interlude," a role she recreated in a television version of the same title, American Playhouse: Strange Interlude (1988); and in 1988 for playing Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's "Macbeth." She has yet to win. She learned her craft (in part, at least) as a member of the Dundee Repertory Company in the early 1960s alongside Edward Fox , Michael Culver and Nicol Williamson .

She was not present to receive either of her Oscars. Prior to military service, her father worked as a bricklayer. Member of Parliament representing the Hampstead and Highgate constituency in north London from 1992 to 2010. She played Queen Elizabeth I in both Elizabeth R (1971) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). Gave birth to her only child at age 32, a son Daniel Pearce Jackson Hodges (political blogger Dan Hodges ) in March 1969. Child's father is her now ex-husband, Roy Hodges. The first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress for a role in which she appeared significantly 'nude' (Women in Love, 1969). She's the only actor to receive an Oscar nomination for an adaptation of a Henrik Ibsen play ( Hedda (1975)). Member of Parliament representing the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in north London from 2010 to 2015. Is one of 14 Best Actress Oscar winners to have not accepted their Academy Award in person.

Jackson was not present to accept either win (for Women in Love (1969) or A Touch of Class (1973)). The others are Katharine Hepburn , Claudette Colbert , Joan Crawford , Judy Holliday , Vivien Leigh , Anna Magnani , Ingrid Bergman , Sophia Loren , Anne Bancroft , Patricia Neal , Elizabeth Taylor , Maggie Smith and Ellen Burstyn . Along with Vivien Leigh , she is one of only two British actresses to have won an Academy Award on two occasions: Leigh won Best Actress for Gone with the Wind (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) while Jackson won Best Actress for Women in Love (1969) and A Touch of Class (1973). Although Elizabeth Taylor - who won Best Actress for BUtterfield 8 (1960) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) - was born in London, her parents were American and she was raised in the United States from the age of three.

Is one of 14 actresses to have won both the Best Actress Academy Award and the Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical Golden Globe for the same performance; hers being for A Touch of Class (1973). The others, in chronological order, are: Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday (1950), Julie Andrews for Mary Poppins (1964), Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl (1968), Liza Minnelli for Cabaret (1972), Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977), Sissy Spacek for Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Cher for Moonstruck (1987), 'Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Helen Hunt for As Good as It Gets (1997), Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love (1998), Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line (2005), Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose (2007), and Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook (2012). Born on the same day as Albert Finney . Personal Quotes (31) I had no real ambition about acting.

But I knew there had to be something better than the bloody chemist's shop. [on her Oscars] My mother polishes them to within an inch of their lives until the metal shows. That sums up the Academy Awards - all glitter on the outside and base metal coming through. Nice presents for a day. But they don't make you any better. If I'm too strong for some people, that's their problem. An actor can do "Hamlet" right through to "Lear", men of every age and every step of spiritual development. Where's the equivalent for women? I don't fancy hanging around to play Nurse in "Romeo and Juliet". Life's too short. [speaking in 1974] Ideally, one would love to work in England. But if no one in England is going to take their courage in both hands and dig into their pockets and finance films - then, you're going to have to work abroad. I was the archetypal spotty teenager who suffered the tortures of the damned because I wasn't like those girls in the magazines. I had lank, greasy hair and I was fat and spotty.

If anyone thinks I looked sexy stripped in The Music Lovers (1970) they must think Minnie Mouse is sexy. [on acting] You'd think it's something one would grow out of. But you grow into it. The more you do, the more you realize how painfully easy it is to be lousy and how very difficult to be good. Men can be a great deal of work for very little reward. You see women in America who've had facelifts - faces as smooth as melons. It makes my stomach turn to think about voluntarily putting myself under a surgeon's knife. One of the most depressing remarks that was made when I first came to the House of Commons was made by an MP who said, "What d'you want to come here for? You're famous already". [on acting] When I have to cry, I think about my love life. When I have to laugh, I think about my love life. If all the star system can offer its talent is the crap it does, then producers should pay through the eyes, ears, nose, mouth - any orifice you can think of. Why put make-up on when you only have to take it off again?

I used to empty ashtrays for the cigarette butts, re-roll them and make myself a fag. I used to live on a pound of sausages and a cooking apple. I was five months pregnant when I made that nude scene in Women in Love (1969). I'd never had such a marvelous bosom. [upon learning of her unexpected second Oscar victory in 1974] I was working but I doubt that I would have been there even if I hadn't been. Watching it on television here in my hotel suite, I kept telling myself that I ought to turn it off and go to bed. I felt disgusted with myself--as though I were attending a public hanging . . . No one should have a chance to see so much desire, so much need for a prize, and so much pain when it was not given. Funny things do happen, though. "Harper's" wanted to include me in their gallery of "Most Beautiful Women". That was hilarious. It was all a terrible mistake, of course. I wound up on a separate page as "a stern young beauty bursting upon London". Stern, you see. Not that I'm really tough.

[on Hollywood] One has to have a reason for going there. If you have a job there, it's like a passport or a visa, and you can always get out. But I should think to be stuck there all the time you'd go mad. On work: I knew early on that I'd have to work, work, work if I was wanted to amount to much; plums don't drop into plain girls' laps. [Observation, 1970] It's ridiculous when you think how hard I'm working right now, when for so many years nobody even knew I existed.But I don't want to wake up one morning and find myself stuck in the hermetically sealed, centrally heated, showbiz world which can destroy you. I wouldn't like to think that I couldn't go to the launderette when I felt like it. I was never part of the glitzy, glamoury, showbizzy part of the entertainment world. I don't think I could ever have been. It wouldn't have interested me and, you know... I wouldn't have been any good at it.

[on gender roles in theatrical plays] There was the male and female lead, the male and female juvenile lead, and the male and female character lead, and the male and female juvenile character lead, and if you didn't fit into any of those boxes then you didn't work. Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant. My money goes to my agent, then to my accountant and from him to the tax man. I look forward to growing old and wise and audacious. At a meeting you might present an idea and it will be listened to and someone will say, 'Oh yes, that's fine.' Ten minutes later a man down the table will produce the same idea, but possibly reworked in its presentation, and there will be unanimous acceptance of what a good idea it was. Also you will be talked over, that's the other thing, you sort of become invisible, and if you protest this, you are deemed to be some form of extreme harridan. One has to begin to take all the work and redirect it into a way in which the problem is actually solved, not merely managed.

[on Margaret Thatcher ] The first Prime Minister of female gender, OK. But a woman? Not on my terms. I was meticulous in not being personally rude. I didn't know the woman: I did know the policies. I spoke up because history has been rewritten over the past week. I lived through the Thatcher period. I know what it was like. I know what it was like for my constituents. The reality bore no resemblance to what's being presented. [on Oliver Reed , in a 1994 interview]: Oliver and I have absolutely nothing to say to each other off-screen. As people, we are chalk and cheese. What I admire in Oliver is his consummate professionalism. It doesn't matter what state he may be in physically, when they say "Action!", he is ready, and that was the aspect of working with him that I liked. I've worked with him a lot and he is an infinitely better actor than he gives himself credit for.

Salary (3) Glenda Jackson – MovieActors.com Glenda Jackson: Best Actress in 1969 and 1973: MovieActors.com 1969: WOMEN IN LOVE (Drama – R) Glenda Jackson won her first Oscar for her performance as Gudrun Brangwen, who was caught in a tragic love affair with an executive (Oliver Reed). 1973: A TOUCH OF CLASS (Romantic Comedy – PG) Glenda Jackson won her second Oscar for her performance as a London business woman who was flirting with a married American man (George Segal). About Glenda Jackson (1936 – ) Glenda Jackson was born on May 9th, 1936 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, to a bricklayer/Navy man. He was recruited into the Navy where he worked on a minesweeper. She graduated from school at 16, and worked in a pharmacy, which bored her, being a young lady with high intelligence. She applied to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and was accepted into the prestigious institution at eighteen. Her ability really impressed everyone who saw her.

After working on the stage, Glenda started working in films. Glenda Jackson won the Best Actress Oscar for her work in the 1969 Ken Russell film adaptation of the D.H. Lawrence novel, WOMEN IN LOVE, with Alan Bates and Oliver Reed. Glenda Jackson was nominated for an Academy Award for her leading role as a sculptor in an abusive relationship with a competitive man. In SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY (1971), Jackson played a divorced business woman, who was the dejected female lover of a bisexual man, Played by Peter Finch, who was perpetrating a menage a trois. In the same year, 1971, Glenda played Queen Elizabeth I in MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. She also played Queen Elizabeth I in the BBC bio pic mini series ELIZABETH R, to great critical acclaim. Glenda Jackson won an Oscar for her performance in A TOUCH OF CLASS (1973), a romantic comedy about a family man and a divorcee, who fall in love while having a fling together. Jackson was again nominated for an Oscar for her performance in HEDDA (1976).

She continued working in films in the '80s and into the early 90's. Glenda stopped her acting career when she was elected to the British Parliament in 1992, and served until the end of the 2015 term. She unsuccessfully ran for mayor of London in 2000 and 2005. Glenda has the distinction of being the only Member of Parliament that has won an oscar. Glenda Jackson, who did not appear at the Academy Awards either time she won an Oscar quipped of her Oscars "My mother polishes them to within an inch of their lives until the metal shows. That sums up the Academy Awards - all glitter on the outside and base metal coming through. Nice presents for a day. But they don't make you any better." On her acting methods, Jackson wryly commented, "When I have to cry, I think about my love life. When I have to laugh, I think about my love life." Glenda Jackson also received Best Actress nominations for: SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY(1971) Glenda Jackson's notable movie credits include...

THIS SPORTING LIFE (1963) KING OF THE WIND (1990) DOOMBEACH (1989) Glenda Jackson's television credits include... THE PATRICIA NEAL STORY (TV Movie 1981) GIRO CITY (1982) ELIZABETH R (TV Mini-Series 1971) THE PATRICIA NEAL (TV Movie 1981) SAKHAROV (TV Movie 1984) THE REAL STORY OF HUMPTY DUMPTY(1990) THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA (TV Movie 1991) A MURDER OF QUALITY (TV Movie 1991) SECRET LIFE OF SIR ARNOLD BAX (TV Movie 1992) A WAVE OF PASSION: THE LIFE OF ALEXANDRA KOLLONTAI (1994) THE SKETCH SHOW STORY - (TV Series) Glenda Jackson in HOPSCOTCH (1980). Glenda Jackson in A TOUCH OF CLASS (1973). Glenda Jackson in HOUSE CALLS (1978).

Glenda Jackson winning Best Actress for "Women in Love" - YouTube Glenda Jackson winning Best Actress for "Women in Love" Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Uploaded on Mar 29, 2011 Glenda Jackson winning the Oscar® for Best Actress for her performance in "Women in Love" at the 43rd Academy Awards® in 1971. Presented by Walter Matthau and accepted by Juliet Mills. Category

Question: Glenda Jackson won an Oscar in 1971 for which film?
Answer: Women in Love